It used to be a sort of running joke: Where else but in Southern California would a high school have a statue of a movie star on its front lawn? The reference was to Venice High's Myrna Loy monument. But there was an explanation. Loy was not an actress, just a student, when she modeled for the sculpture in 1922. The oft-damaged cement work was replaced by a bronze version earlier this month. Several other local statues and busts of notables also occupy what seem, at first glance, to be unlikely settings.

For more than a century at this time of year, many have wondered if the mysterious statue on the top of the old Masonic Hall in this quaint coastal town has something to do with the dawning of a new year. The large statue carved out of a solid block of redwood shows what appears to be a bearded Father Time with wings and a sickle, standing at the back of a maiden patiently braiding her hair.

Several statues, including a $25,000 marble figure of Cupid, were stolen from the gardens of two La Canada Flintridge homes over the weekend. A few of the statues were damaged but recovered in the street a short distance from where they were taken. Those recovered included the 3-foot-6, 200-pound Cupid, which had four fingers and a thumb broken off a hand, according to a report by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Taliban soldiers unlocked the bullet-scarred doors of the Kabul Museum on Thursday, opening the war-ravaged building for the first time since Afghanistan's hard-line rulers ordered all pre-Islamic statues destroyed. Remnants of the destroyed statues were nowhere to be seen in the museum. Pieces of a stone carving were visible through a rusted grill in a basement room, but they were not identified as a statue. "We are here to show you what we have.

Re "Justice Dept. Puts Statues Under Wraps," Jan. 29: Let me get this straight. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft recuses himself from the Enron issue; something to hide? Now, he decides that there is something more important to hide. He protects us from some of our country's historic artwork by purchasing $8,000 in drapes to cover nude statues that have been in place for some 70 years. When did his job become one of being art critic and moral arbiter for our nation? The hiding of the artwork is reminiscent of the type of judgments made by the Taliban.

A group of Latino activists is urging the San Diego City Council to block plans by a private foundation to erect a statue of Pete Wilson, the former mayor and governor, in downtown. Supporters want to place a statue of the former mayor outside Horton Plaza near statues of early downtown developer Alonzo Horton and Ernest W. Hahn, who built Horton Plaza.

After months of rancor over where to put a monument to tennis star Arthur Ashe, a bronze statue of him was set atop a stone column on a Richmond, Va., street dedicated to Confederate icons in the city where he was born. Statues eastward along tree-lined Monument Avenue honor Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Just being great and retired doesn't guarantee a baseball player has the mettle for metal. Cal Ripken Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, yet baseball's ironman has never been cast in bronze. Nor has legendary Dodgers left-hander Sandy Koufax, and that rankles San Diego freelance writer Howard Cole, whose edgy Dodgers-focused website, baseballsavvy.com, has been agitating for a Koufax statue for years. "To me, he's Los Angeles' sports hero. The greatest sports hero," Cole said.

The Taliban regime shut down the British Broadcasting Corp.'s office in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and ordered its correspondent to leave, accusing the BBC of biased coverage of the destruction of ancient statues of Buddha. The BBC's reporting on the demolition of the towering Buddhas at Bamian, about 80 miles northwest of Kabul, was misleading and hostile, the Taliban said.

A bronze statue of the late African American tennis pro Arthur Ashe will be placed along Monument Avenue, the same street where statues honor Confederate leaders who fought to maintain slavery more than a century ago. "I am elated, first because the city of Richmond had the chance to move forward, and second because Arthur will be honored," said Ashe's brother, Johnnie, after Tuesday's City Council vote. Ashe was the first black to win a Wimbledon title. He died of AIDS in 1993.